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Nurse Practitioner

Average Salary$102,526

Years Higher Education6 - 8

Job OutlookGood

Nurse practitioners are advanced practice registered nurses who provide care to patients throughout the lifespan, from premature newborns to the elderly. Two out of three nurse practitioners provide primary care. Those primary care providers often specialize in family care, women’s health, pediatrics or adult/geriatric care. Nurse practitioners can prescribe medications, including controlled substances, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In 26 states, nurse practitioners have authority to practice independently.

As clinicians, they diagnose and treat patients as well as help them prevent disease and manage their health. Their responsibilities include:

Approximately 15% of all nurse practitioners have their own private practices. There are also a number of nurse-managed health centers across the United States, in which all of the health care is directed and provided by nurse practitioners, along with other health care professionals.

Depending upon the type of practice, working schedules may be a conventional work week or may include weekends and holidays and/or being available on call after hours.

Salary Range and Outlook

In 2016, the mean, full-time base salary for a nurse practitioner was $102,526. Keep in mind that salaries, required duties and working conditions vary among the many different practice sites and patient populations.

The job outlook for advanced practice registered nurses is good. The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that jobs are expected to grow 31% between 2014 and 2024, much faster than the average.

Academic Requirements

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses with graduate education in nursing. Most nurse practitioners earn a Master of Science in Nursing, which requires at least two years of full-time study beyond the bachelor’s degree in nursing. They specialize in pediatrics, adult and gerontology, family and women’s primary care, occupational health, psychiatric/mental health and acute care. Sub-specialty preparation, such as oncology, is also available.

Nurse practitioners need to be critical thinkers: they must obtain relevant information about a person’s health status from a wide variety of sources (the patient’s verbal communication, clinical examination and diagnostic tests) and use that data to independently make evidence-based decisions about when, why and how to address health care needs. They also need to be able to cope well with stress, since their work includes direct involvement with human suffering, emergencies and other pressures.

Nurse practitioner educational programs include graduate courses in health sciences (e.g., pathophysiology, pharmacology, epidemiology) and courses in the diagnosis and clinical management of health and illness. Students also complete several semesters of supervised clinical practice to demonstrate competency in providing health care. Graduates from these programs are eligible to sit for national board examinations to become certified.

If you are considering going into this field, you should know that there is a growing national movement to require all nurse practitioners to earn a Doctor of Nursing Practice (D.N.P.) degree. This degree is called a practice doctorate and is similar to the academic credentials earned by dentists (D.D.S.), physicians (M.D./D.O.), clinical psychologists (Psy.D. or Ph.D.), clinical pharmacists (Pharm.D.) and other health care providers. D.N.P. programs require three to four years of study beyond a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

The cost of earning a graduate degree can be high, but funding is available. In addition to grants for graduate nursing education, there are federal government education loan repayment programs for nurse practitioners who practice following graduation or become faculty members in an accredited nursing program. Also, as a benefit, many hospitals offer their nurse employees tuition reimbursement for pursuing advanced nursing degrees. You can read the funding resources fact sheet offered by The American Association of Colleges of Nursing.